Dogs Do The Darnedest Things

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, an 8 year old dog named China found a young baby only a few hours old in a field & rescued it by carrying it 50 meters & placing it with her own litter of six newborn puppies. China’s owner heard the baby crying & found him among the pups covered in a rag several hours later.

The premature baby girl was abandoned by its 14 year old mother. However the mother did reveal herself after the incident made the news, although she is saying very little about what happened.

Authorities say had it not been for China, the baby probably would have died.

See La China Here… (Warning: there is no sound on this video)

The Maryland SPCA is looking for photogenic dogs (and other animals) to be in their 2009 calendar. There’s a $35 entry fee & you will receive a calendar. All qualified entries will appear in the calendar, and some will be featured prominently. From the pool of submitted pictures, the SPCA will select the most captivating photos to feature on the cover as Pet-of-the-Month.

As much as you love your dog, you can’t be in the picture You’d better hurry though, you have less than a month to submit your pooches picture. The deadline is June 2, 2008, Maryland residents only. For more details and an entry form, visit the SPCA’s calendar webpage or call Carrie Price at 410-235-8826, ext. 133.

Rex the dog saw a dead mama kangaroo on the side of the road in Australia. He saw something moving in her pouch and gently dug it out. It was a baby kangaroo (a joey). Rex took the joey to his owner.

The two animals have taken a liking to each other and spent time playing together before it was taken to a local wildlife sanctuary.

The joey will be hand-reared at the sanctuary until it is 18 months old, then it will be released into the wild.

See Rex and the joey here…

Stephen Huneck, a Vermont folk artist has had a love affair with dogs since he was a boy. He’s now turned that love affair into a thriving business.

At his Dog Mountain studio and dog chapel — on a picturesque 175-acre hillside farm in rural northern Vermont, he started out whittling wooden sculptures of dogs, and now specializes in dog-themed furniture, woodcut paintings and children’s books. He has carved out a unique niche with his whimsical reproductions of Labrador retrievers and other dogs. He has regular people and celebrities alike all commissioning him to do dog works for him.

But his dog chapel is for people who go to mourn the loss of their beloved pooch. The walls are covered in handwritten remembrances and photographs left by owners.

Read more about Huneck’s doggy Disneyland here…

A firm in South Korea, RNL Bio is going to clone an American woman’s dead pitbull named Booger - for $50,000. Since this is the first cloning, the California woman will get a $100,000 discount (from the normal price of $150,000.) The cloning will be done at Seoul National University. This is the first commercial cloning of a pet. (A non-commercial cloning was done of an Afghan dog, Snuppy, in 2005.)

Booger’s owner saved tissue from his ear and the cells are being implanted into 8 female dogs.

Many Westerners are willing to clone their pets even at the high price.

SNU researchers expect to receive orders for specialist dogs such as drug and bomb sniffer dogs. As a matter of fact, last summer they signed an initial deal with the customs service to clone drug-sniffing dogs. They hope that the capacity will be increased in the hope that 100 “companion dogs” can be cloned from next year, and eventually 500 dogs annually. Could people be far off?